Joni Mitchell

Overview

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Joni Mitchell, CC, (born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada) is a Canadian musician, singer-songwriter, poet and painter. A highly influential artist, she has received eight Grammy Awards during her career, with the first coming in 1969 and the most recent in 2008. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the citation describing her as "one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era" and "a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity." She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in 2000. In November 2006, her album "Blue" was listed by TIME magazine as among the "All-Time 100 Albums".

Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Western Canada and then busking on the streets of Toronto. Her writing and art talent emerged before her exposure as a gifted musician performing in Western Canada, including Winnipeg, where she met Neil Young. She then associated with the burgeoning folk music scene of the mid-1960s in New York City.

Recording her début album in 1968 and achieving fame first as a songwriter ("Urge for Going", "Chelsea Morning", "Both Sides, Now", "Woodstock") and then as a singer in her own right. Finally settling in Southern California, Mitchell played a key part in the folk rock movement then sweeping the musical landscape. Blue, her starkly personal 1971 album, is regarded as one of the strongest and most influential records of the time. Mitchell also had pop hits such as "Big Yellow Taxi", "Free Man in Paris", and "Help Me", the last two from 1974's best-selling Court and Spark.

In 1975 Joni released "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" which can be seen as an artistic turning point, and the beginning of her unique blend of folk, jazz and rock. It was intended as a concept album of sorts, with the "concept" being the contrast being freedom and slavery, and the idea that wealth and status sometimes ironically place a great many constraints on people's behavior.

Mitchell is also an accomplished visual artist. She has, through photography or painting, created the artwork for each of her albums, and has described herself as a "painter derailed by circumstance". A blunt critic of the music industry, Mitchell has stopped recording over the last several years, and now focuses mainly on her visual art.